They say styles make fights and tonight's heavyweight clash between Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem will see fighters with distinctly different backgrounds go toe-to-toe inside the UFC's Octagon.

Both men weigh around 19 stones, both men are bona-fide world-class fighters and both men have the same aim - to become the next UFC heavyweight champion. But their styles are vastly different.

Lesnar is a pure wrestler. Forget the fact he found fame as a WWE superstar, his sporting credentials are unquestioned.

Before his stint inside the squared circle, Lesnar was the NCAA national wrestling champion in 2000 and placed runner-up the previous year.

His sheer size and strength, coupled with the quickness of a middleweight, has made him an extremely difficult proposition to deal with in a seven-fight mixed martial arts career that has seen him gatecrash the UFC heavyweight division and become the UFC heavyweight champion in just his fourth professional fight.

His opponent, English-born Dutchman Alistair Overeem, is a markedly different athlete. While he has similarly freakish size and strength, Overeem's skillset lies in his striking ability.

A world-class kickboxer who actually considered a switch to boxing to take on the dominance of the Klitschko brothers, Overeem became the K-1 Grand Prix champion in 2010, defeating three of the world's best heavyweight kickboxers, one after the other, in the same night to earn the coveted title.

But despite his kickboxing success, Overeem is a complete mixed martial artist. During his 47-fight MMA career he has gone the distance just twice, finishing 14 of his opponents by knockout or TKO and 19 by submission.

It's the latter stat that may prove crucial in tonight's bout. Much has been said about Overeem's power, but his submission skills have been overlooked by many in the leadup to this bout, who have preferred to label the bout as a "wrestler vs striker" matchup.

In truth Overeem is a lot more than just a striker. The Dutchman has never fought in the UFC before, but he has a huge experience advantage over Lesnar. It's also worth noting that in Lesnar's seven bouts, he's found himself in big trouble in three of them.

For his part, Overeem has had his fair share of defeats, but they came earlier in his career. He arrives in Las Vegas on an 11-fight unbeaten streak and has lost just once in 16 MMA bouts as a heavyweight.

Without doubt he represents a major threat not only to Lesnar, but to the UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos, who will face the winner of tonight's bout in a title fight.

But who'll be stepping up to fight Dos Santos? The bookies say Overeem. His experience and well-rounded skillset see him the favourite to win tonight's bout.

But Lesnar has that X factor about him. He has developed rapidly during his short, but remarkable, MMA career to date and now, hopefully with his much-publicised health problems behind him, there's little reason why he couldn't step back into the Octagon and bulldoze Overeem with his wrestling and ground and pound.

It's almost too close to call, but my money is on Overeem to win the bout, utilising his experience to keep the fight standing and using his powerful knees to set up a TKO finish inside the opening two rounds.

However it finishes, and whoever does prevail, it promises to be an explosive contest and a huge spectacle for the sport of mixed martial arts.

Who's YOUR money on?

Brock Lesnar vs Alistair Overeem is the main event at UFC 141, which is televised live on ESPN UK from 3am tonight. Early prelim bouts can be watched live on Facebook from 1am and US televised prelim bouts can be watched live via UFC.tv from 2am.